


Weapon

by Medie



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:31:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is a weapon forged and, whatever their sins, her tutors taught her well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weapon

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [](http://igrockspock.livejournal.com/profile)[**igrockspock**](http://igrockspock.livejournal.com/)'s prompt: _Gaila - no phasers, only chainsaws or electrodaggers_ for the [Awesome Ladies Ficathon](http://ineffort.livejournal.com/199061.html)

She is the syndicate's weapon. The matriarch's blade unsheathed, slicing through her enemies as energy through air, death to whomever she is sent. She is to be without mercy, without compassion, she is to be the entirety of her purpose.

Gaila hears this over and over throughout her childhood and adolescence. With each step of the dance, each featherlight twist of the blade and each thrust of her body against another, repeated and repeated until it is the very nature of breathing. She is a weapon. She learns to marry death with desire, pleasing and teasing until those in her thrall would beg for release. She learns art, music, stories and song, and she studies the histories of their people. Of the queens and goddesses of generations past who'd risen up against the domination of their men, refusing to be pretty playthings and visiting upon their former masters vengeance and despair.

She learns these things at the hands of her tutors and her matriarch. She embraces death. She embodies desire. She becomes the matriarch's fury given form, flesh, and a will to match.

_Her_ will. Hers. That, Gaila thinks, is the old woman's mistake. The matriarch is fearsome, even her name forbidden from the lips of those she controls, but she is not omniscient. In the freedom of her studies, Gaila learns this. She learns, she listens, and, most importantly, she waits.

She has one steady companion in her patience.

"Watch," Nisa snaps, bringing Gaila to focus.

Nisa is old. Older than the matriarch even. She's Andorian and her skin is paper-thin, splotched with darker blue age spots, but she's strong and fast. Her hand darts out, grabbing Gaila's, and draws her closer still.

"See there?" she stabs one gnarled finger, pointing the engine laid bare before them. "See that conduit?"

Gaila nods, listens as Nisa explains its workings. Explains how even the slightest nick of a electrodagger's blade could conduct enough current to disrupt the plasma flow and leave no sign. Nothing in the resulting explosion to suggest sabotage.

Behind them, Gaila's minder nods approval. Gaila sees the motion over her shoulder, but ignores it. She focuses on Nisa and her lessons and, yes, the things she isn't supposed to learn. Nisa knows well how to teach without saying a word, just as Gaila knows how to ask in the same fashion.

Once, long ago, Nisa was an engineer - a Starfleet officer - taken in a raid. In those days, she had been young and beautiful. So much so the matriarch had loved her and, worse, forgotten. Forgotten that Nisa was a slave, hers but not, and one that had known freedom.

Such things must never be forgotten and Nisa's body still bears the scars of the matriarch's reminder. Punishments for a betrayal that was no betrayal at all. One such scar winds its way along Nisa's forearm, disappearing beneath her sleeve to join the many that Gaila cannot see.

The palace is old, older than any other on Orion Prime, and with the day's lesson done, Gaila moves through its depths with a familiarity that pricks at her skin. Theirs is a clan with much influence, the matriarch's place high within the syndicate, and the spoils of generations past decorate every surface. She knows the story of each one and whose life had spilled to seize it.

There are many such stories. Hers and Nisa's numbering among them.

In the matriarch's personal chambers, new Deltan tapestries cloak the walls and ward off the winter's chill. Their delicate weaving bought with the blood of her sisters and Gaila sees only their faces as she takes the sight in.

The matriarch lifts her head, eyes dark with delight, and pushes the slave attending her aside.

She's older now than the power-hungry woman of Gaila's youth. The woman who'd taken her from her family, seizing her with a delighted smile to make her a living blade. Satisfaction has aged her, worn her smooth, making her complacent.

"Tell me of your lessons," she demands, plucking a sweetmeat from the plate before her. There's a glass of Vulcan port beside it and new silks drape her body. Her latest trip off-world was fruitful then. Gaila wonders whose blood has joined the river flowing through their history. "What did the old fool tell you today?"

Gaila smiles. She is the syndicate's weapon. She is without mercy. She is old enough to know a lie.

"She told me me a truth."

She is a weapon forged and, whatever their sins, her tutors taught her well. The blade flies from her fingers, but Gaila doesn't wait to see it land. She is gone and old Nisa with her before the matriarch's body can even cool.

The Starfleet of her stories awaits them both.


End file.
